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All posts for the month September, 2016

Shorter post this week, a lot of quick hits and not much in depth analysis. Hope to be back in action next week.

Scary Thought:

The Patriots are guaranteed to be alone in 1st place when Tom Brady come backs. Talk about crazy! Amazing coaching job as well. I think had they gone 1-3 they could still win the division, and 2-2 would have been considered a success. Instead, 4-0 is very likely at this point.

Offenses Waking Up:

Rams scored 9 point in 2 games, 0 TD’s. All of a sudden racked up 4 TD’s on Sunday on the road

Seahawks had scored 1 TD all season (last minute in Week 1), but also racked up 4 on Sunday

Terrible Football:

For 0-3 teams, at least the Jaguars are entertaining to watch. The Bears on the otherhand are just terrible. And for some reason we get them in another slot of back-to-back primetime games later in the season. How do they get 4 primetime games?!?!

Stat of the Week:

Anybody have Marvin Jones and Stefon Diggs as the Top 2 receivers in the league?

Stat of the Week #2:

The entire AFC South has a negative point differential, while the entire AFC West are in the positive

Stat of the Week #3:

Ryan Fitzpatrick threw 6 INT’s on Sunday, more than every other QB has in the season so far. Somehow he was never sacked the entire game. Seems like an odd combo

Stat of the Week #4:

LeGarrett Blount is leading the league in rushing yards and rushing TD’s

Stat of the Week #5:

We keep looking at Carson Wentz and their offense, but Philly’s D is leading the league; giving up only 9 points per game.

Stat of the Week #6:

The Vikings, Ravens and Eagles all 3-0! Meanwhile the Bengals, Cardinals, Panthers, and Redskins have 4 wins combined

New Wave of QB’s:

With all the hullabaloo surrounding Dak Prescott and Carson Wentz, the overlooked QB right now is Trevor Siemian. John Elway ditching Brock Osweiler was a mistake in most people’s eyes, but keep in mind that the Patriots and Giants both do the same thing with high priced free agents. So Osweiler is taking up $18M of salary cap while Siemian is at $525K but still has his team at 3-0….wow. The whole Rookie QB phenomena this year is an awesome story, the only other time I remember this hype was when Matt Ryan and Joe Flacco were rookies, or back with Ben Roethlisberger went 15-1 his rookie year.

I’m going to start off by saying, it was one game people. But wow did Sam Bradford look like the #1 overall draft pick he should have been all along! This has to have been the highest pressure situation in a Week 2 game in NFL history. New stadium, bitter rivalry game, new team, he has been studying the offense for 15 days, first start with the team. It’s so dire, you almost can’t blame him if he loses! But instead he thrived. He found a favorite target in Stefon Diggs, who now leads the league in receiving yards. He is famous for his injuries, and being skittish in the pocket. But he held strong and got crushed several times, only to sit up and see that he completed the ball. Bravo Bradford, on your best day as a pro. I think if you ask most Vikings or Packers fans after Teddy’s injury, very few TRULY thought that the Vikings would be alone in 1st place after 2 weeks. On a side note, that defense is starting to look a little scary.

Stat of the Week:

Browns are starting their 5th QB in 5 games. Only the 2nd Team since the merger to ever do this. They should make a jersey for this!

Stat of the Week #2:

Rams have yet to score a TD this season, but are in a tie for 1st in the division

Last season seemed to be the season of comebacks, but it’s already looking like this season might be crazier! Record amount of 4th quarter comebacks in Week 1 already.

New Age Quarterbacks:

It’s rare that backup QB’s come in and do so well for teams. Perhaps why the stories of Tom Brady and Kurt Warner stay in people’s minds. It makes it almost more impossible that a new wave of young QB’s has seem to taken the field by storm. First time starters Trevor Siemien, Jimmy Garapolo, and Carson Wentz all won, and all looked solid! Even Brock Osweiler and Jameis Winston definitely showed up, who of course played last year but aren’t household names. Dak Prescott also had a decent first start with no real mistakes. It makes you wonder if gone are the days where you have your top 5 QB’s that everybody focuses on, and the rest are mediocre.

Going for Two:

Love, love, LOVE the call by Jack Del Rio to go for 2 at the end of the game! Coaches never want to take risks, because it’s their heads if the call is unsuccessful. So Kudos to the Raiders for taking a chance, it was the right call even if they failed. The situation was ripe for it. You’re in a shootout, so obviously your Defense wasn’t stopping the Saints (but the flipside is also true). They were on the road, so an additional period likely favors the Saints. OT is probably less than 50% chance you win the game, but a 2 pt call is right around 50-50. Don’t get me into the fact that the extra point is definitely not automatic anymore (as we saw 4 teams run into this week). The only thing I’m not a fan of is the play call itself; fade routes can be tough to execute. But either way the Raiders did it. Week 1 is never a “must win” scenario, but it could be season defining for Oakland where a precious win will pay dividends in their playoff push.

And so is Friday Morning Quarterback for a special Pre-Kickoff Thursday Night edtion of FMQB. It’s also Year 6! Not sure if that’s an obsession or not, but we’ll roll with it. My pre-season predictions is always a bit of a more tedious post, so I’m cutting it back a bit this year. Mainly with my team by team analysis, because I’m not sure how many people care about my thoughts around the Jaguars or Buccaneers. I’ll talk about some, but plan on keeping it brief. Any complaints and I can change it next year.

Player Predictions

Blake Bortles is top 5 QB in either yards or TD’s this year. INT’s don’t go down

RGIII sees a resurgence this year before getting injured at the end of the season. Comeback player of the year

Andrew Luck is his old self, bringing the team to the AFC Championship game

Brock Osweiler becomes the real deal for Houston

Bears WR Kevin White is a household name after this year

Kelvin Benjamin is back with a vengeance. Top 5 receiver in the league

Last year as starting QB for Jay Cutler (I’ve held onto him too long)

Rookies to Watch

Dak Prescott starts more games than Romo (see my worshiping of Dak below). My pick for Rookie of the Year

Ezekial Elliot thrives behind that staunch Dallas O-Line

Jared Goff, of course. See when he gets significant playing time. My guess is he’s inserted in Week 9 and keeps the job

Carson Wentz: I don’t think he’s 100% and has hardly had a chance to adjust to NFL speeds. Could be a long season

Joey Bosa’s saga ends up being worth it for San Diego. He gets defensive Rookie of the Year

League MVP

New guys duke it out, but Andy Dalton edges Andrew Luck for the award

Surprise Teams

Jaguars

Raiders

Jets

Overrated Teams

Broncos: I have actually seen a legitimate site list the Broncos as the best team in the league, with a QB who has never thrown an NFL pass. Wow

Vikings

Underrated Teams

Cowboys

Chiefs

Team by Team predictions

AFC

Patriots: (2015: 12-4): Brady’s suspension will hurt the team but not enough to lose the division. 10-6

Dolphins: (2015: 6-10): Not impressed with the Dolphins this year. Tannehill will regress. 4-12

Bills: (2015: 8-8): The Bills hype is also over. They got blasted in the preseason. 4-12

Seahawks: (2015: 10-6): Seahawks right the ship and take the division at 12-4

Saints: (2015: 7-9): No big change, still mediocre at 7-9 again.

Falcons: (2015: 8-8): Falcons are a team going downhill, even with Freeman and Jones. 6-10

Panthers: (2015: 15-1): Panthers continue to dominate the division, but just at a paltry 13-3

Buccaneers: (2015: 6-10): Winston will look better this year at 8-8.

Playoff Predictions

AFC

Bengals

Patriots

Chiefs

Colts

Jets

Raiders

NFC

Packers

Panthers

Seahawks

Redskins

Cardinals

Cowboys

Super Bowl picks

If we’re talking Vegas, I have money on the Colts and Cardinals (simply for Odds purposes).

In terms of FMQB, I have Packers and Patriots going, Packers winning it. Second choice would be Bengals Seahawks.

In Dak We Trust:

I know a lot of people have jumped on this train, but I ended up watching the first two preseason games; Rams and Dolphins. Both games he looked incredibly poised, had a rocket of an arm, good pocket presence, and could run if he needed to. 5 TD’s, 0 INT’s in 3 preseason games. The Cowboys biggest problem the last 5 years was that whenever Romo gets injured, their season is over. They have had Kyle Orton, Brandon Weeden, Matt Cassell, and Jon Kitna to fit the bill. This year they have a stark Rookie, who they can easily train as the replacement to Romo. He’ll have a chance to show his skills the first 6-10 weeks. Could make a decision to re-insert Romo pretty tough, but keep in mind the one full season he was healthy during that timeframe, he took the Cowboys to 12-4.

Bridgewater/Bradford rant

First, living in Minnesota and spending time around a bunch of Minnesota fans, I got to feel their despair first hand when Teddy Bridgewater went down. It literally felt like somebody passed away. There was video of the Ambulance going to Winter Park, players swearing and crying, business that day seemed to come to a standstill. Very similar to when Prince died (yes I’m making that comparison, no don’t jump down my throat for it I know it’s not the same). It’s all anybody could talk about on the radio and in the office. I truly felt bad for Vikings-nation. Even my Packer-fanatic girlfriend showed remorse rather than glee that they had just been handed the division. It was a sad day.

Fast forward 96 hours, and in true Viking-fan form, the whole “we won a game honey, we’re going to the Super Bowl” mentality was back! The Vikings traded their first round pick for none other than Sam Bradford. A guy I had rallied behind for 4 years while in St. Louis, but never got to see his true potential due to injuries. My famous argument was “He was rookie of the year for a reason, he has talent!” I ended up giving up on him after the 2nd straight year of having to watch Shaun Hill QB our team due to his injuries. But with a mere 8 days to learn the offense before opening day, and of course because #5 defense from last year is all of a sudden compared to the 85 Bears (yes I heard that on the radio) and 01 Ravens or 03 Buccaneers (Trent Dilfer and Brad Johnson were main arguing points). This makes them Super Bowl worthy.

I have yet to hear a definitive timeframe for Teddy’s injury. I have “heard” 16-20 months, but only read in official reports 9-12. Here’s my thought on the whole Bradford trade, which I’m sure people won’t like. The Vikings way-overpaid, and anything less than a Super Bowl this year is a failure. Why? Because I think Bridgewater is back next year, and at the worst for a majority of that 2017 season. There’s no way that they have Bridgewater and Bradford compete for the spot, it’s Teddy’s team. So in my mind, this is a 1 year, band-aid trade. They gave up their 1st round pick to try to remain in their championship window, when one could argue there’s at least 6 other teams more talented than the Vikes anyway. It’s just too much in my opinion.

Goff vs. Wentz

I realized that I never really inserted my opinion regarding the top 2 picks this year. Part of it has wavered, but still remains the same. As a Rams fan, I’m extremely disappointed that they chose Goff over Wentz. Goff has had the worst college record of any #1 overall pick (14-23), although he did break some of Aaron Rodgers’ school records. Still, that’s a 37% win rate. As of Hard Knocks, we have seen that Day 1, successfully receiving the hike from the center was a giant challenge. Maybe there’s a reason he’s inactive Week 1. On the flip side, Carson Wentz won 5 National Championships while in college. Yes, FIVE!!! That’s an all time NCAA record (although he red-shirted his freshmen year). He also scored higher on the Wonderlic test than Peyton Manning.

Here’s my thoughts. I like the Rams approach, I was afraid they’d start Goff immediately, and it seems like most Rookie QB success comes by waiting (a la Aaron Rodgers and Carson Palmer). They have a chance to learn the offense and develop mentally before getting thrown into the fire physically. HAD the Eagles kept Sam Bradford and developed Wentz in the same way, I would hands down have said Wentz is and will be the better QB (thus, being severely disappointed as a Rams fan). But it’s up in the air for me now. I have seen flashes of greatness from Jared Goff, but also blundering rookie mistakes. He’s also gotten smoked a couple times in the preseason, and he’s not even playing against 1st string guys. Wentz on the other hand is now being thrown into the starting spot after just a couple preseason reps before getting hurt (and he may not be 100% healthy). Will be interesting to watch this season.

Stat of the Week:

Sam Bradford has been paid $1M for every TD pass thrown in the league ($78M earned in career, 78 TD passes)

Quote of the Offseason:

I’m not going 7-9 again!- Jeff Fisher, Rams head coach

For the Record:

It’s strange to realize, but for the first time in 12 years, the debate “Who’s the best QB in football” isn’t synonymous with “Brady vs. Manning.”

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About FMQB

FMQB is a blog for football fans, by a football fan. Each week I try to show some insights into several games and interesting statistics while also bringing humor to the mix. Join me for some fun by taking a quick break every week to re-live the best game in the world.